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Eggcrates
Hi there –
I own three 2k Ianiro Blondes with barn doors and I’m looking for a better way to control them, so I’m looking into Egg Crates/Grids.
B&H sell a 1″ grid and a 2″ grid (about $100 each) which are made to fit the Botticelli 2k softlight and are therefore ok to use with hot lights. I imagine that I could devise a way of attaching these to my 2k Blondes. However, I am wondering whether these grids produce the same end result as snoots – and snoots are a lot cheaper … I could even use black wrap to make a snoot-type-thing and clip it to the edges of the barn doors.
The people on this board have been kind enough to take the trouble to answer a couple of questions for me before, so I am hoping that some Good Samaritan will take pity on me in my stupidity and tell me whether buying a grid would make a worthwhile difference.
With thanks for reading this post and many thanks for your patience.
Harry.
PS: Here are links to the B&H Photo site and the grids in question.
One inch grid:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/148313-REG/DeSisti_3116_100_Egg_Crate_for_Botticelli.html
Two inch grid:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/148314-REG/DeSisti_3116_200_Egg_Crate_for_Botticelli.html
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9 Replies
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One look at the Boticelli Softlight (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=Botticelli+2K+Softlight&N=0&InitialSearch=yes) for which those grids are intended should tell you why you would not want or be able to use these grids directly on your Blondes. Snoots, including your own black-wrap versions, would be much more effective and workable.
The description of the grids is a bit misleading: “Eggcrates act in much the same way as snoots do”. Snoots help you to create a narrow cone of light. Grids help make soft lights more directional, reducing spill on all sides. They are often added to the fronts of chimeras and the like for that reason. They also chew up a significant amount of light. Cones do not.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
Rick,
Thank you very much for your valuable advice. I’ll cobble together a blackwrap snoot and save myself a hundred bucks.
With thanks again for your speedy reply.
Best
Harry.
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Why are eggcrates so ruinously expensive?
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Mark,
I believe it’s because they’re hand sewn by underage fairies who’ve been consecrated by the Gnome God.
It’s got to be something like that.
Or maybe that there’s no good machine approach to creating fabric squares in that configuration and it requires tedious human labor?
Just guessing on both counts.
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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I think it’s pretty much the same reason that a whole lot of film gear is outrageously expensive…
“Because it can be.”
If there was a huge market for these and there were stacks and stacks of them on the shelf at every Target store, they’d probably be three bucks apiece. You could probably easily name a hundred different pieces of film equipment that, if commonly used by the general public, would be a mere fraction of their costs today.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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I was at a photography seminar about 10 years ago and one of the participants asked the same question. The answer was that the inventor of the egg crates demanded a royalty fee for every piece sold and so the mark-up makes the egg crates more expensive than they need to be. The photographer running the seminar recommended that people find whatever workaround they could to avoid the ridiculous price.
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I think that was an eggzagration.. of the truth..
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[Robin Probyn] “I think that was an eggzagration.. “
eggzactly! (also, eggcellent)
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I thought that was a yoke when i read Diane,s post..
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